• Quins’ thrilling defeat of Leicester lifts hopes in South Africa
• Timely boost for England’s head coach Stuart Lancaster

For Englishmen the 2011-12 season has been one of huge mood swings. It has been a tale of redemption, too, from the low of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand to the high generated by Harlequins’ bravura display in a memorable Premiership final. Chris Robshaw, England’s captain, will jet off to South Africa this week feeling anything is possible if his squad can adapt Quins’ dashing method to the international stage.

Normally it would be fanciful to expect one club team to supply the blueprint for the national side but Quins, in winning their first league title, proved that English players and smart, deft, attacking rugby are not mutually exclusive even on the grandest occasions. When the final whistle blew on Saturday, Quins had 14 English-qualified players on the field, a timely pre‑tour boost for the watching England head coach, Stuart Lancaster.

It just shows that out of darkness can cometh light for those with sufficient ambition. The biggest tribute you can pay Quins is that they moved the ball around as sweetly and effectively as an outstanding Leinster team did in the Heineken Cup final a week earlier. In doing so, they also relegated the Bloodgate saga of three years ago to footnote status and allowed individuals such as Tom Williams and Danny Care to vanquish all kinds of demons.

All sorts of other people deserve credit – Quins’ overnight success has been seven years in the making since their relegation from the Premiership in 2005 – but Care’s fall and rise neatly mirrors that of a club who have also had to absorb a number of painful lessons. The scrum‑half’s off‑field conduct saw him excluded from England’s Six Nations squad but, like Quins, he has emerged the stronger for it.

Having given up alcohol and refocused on his game, he unsettled Leicester from start to finish and played sufficiently well to demand a starting place in England’s team for the first Test against the Springboks in Durban on Saturday week.

“There was obviously a time this season when I wasn’t enjoying my rugby at all. The last few months have been completely different and to win this is a dream come true. It’s the best feeling I’ve ever had as a rugby player. We believed we were the best team in the Premiership and I think we showed it.”

It did no harm that several key Leicester men, not least Thomas Waldrom at No8, had games to forget. Manu Tuilagi looked jumpy and Julian Salvi did not seem fully fit. Quins also looked happier in temperatures nudging 90F (32C), having spent four days in Abu Dhabi before the final.

Conor O’Shea, as director of rugby, deserves a great deal of the credit, having mastered the difficult juggling act of topping the regular season table while keeping something in reserve for the play‑offs. Leicester, who have now lost six of their last nine Twickenham finals, can be relied on to come back strong but, on the day, were beaten by a visibly sharper unit.

Players looping ceaselessly around a midfield pivot, constantly looking for offloads and mismatches, with Robshaw and the excellent Joe Marler offering more direct ball-carrying options. The main difference with last season, when Quins won the Amlin Challenge Cup but fell short domestically, has been their collective decision-making and discipline. “Now people understand that we don’t have to give the miracle ball all the time,” said Nick Easter, swift to applaud O’Shea and his coaching team. “Even in the dark moments he’s backed the way we play.”

The speed and tempo of Quins’ recycled ruck ball created their first try by Williams after 10 minutes and the sin-binning of Waldrom shortly before half-time made life harder still for the Tigers, even after a lucky ricochet at a lineout resulted in a breakaway score for Steve Mafi. Nick Evans landed three penalty goals in Waldrom’s absence and Robshaw’s unstoppable angled surge for his 56th‑minute try helped Quins to a 30-13 lead with 13 minutes left.

To the Tigers’ credit they responded with a try by Anthony Allen and a George Ford penalty but a crooked lineout throw at a critical juncture scuppered their late rally. “The determination and self-belief we have at this club is brilliant,” Care said. “This is hopefully the first of many trophies to come. I think we’ve proved we’re a special team but we want to go on from this to bigger and better things.”

There is every chance if this young side keep improving. The squad contain only three players over the age of 30 and have triumphantly lanced the myth of Leicester invincibility. “If you want to announce yourself on the English stage you need to beat the likes of Leicester,” said Ugo Monye, one of Quins’ faithful stalwarts. “They’re the ultimate challenge.”

Times, though, are changing. Robshaw’s champions fully deserved their title and England should seek to follow their example.

Harlequins Brown; Williams, Lowe, Turner-Hall, Monye; Evans (Clegg, 77), Care; Marler, Gray, Johnston, Kohn, Robson, Fa’asavalu (Guest, 73), Robshaw (capt), Easter.

Tries Williams, Robshaw Con Evans Pens Evans 6.

Leicester Murphy (capt); Agulla (Hamilton, 74), M Tuilagi, Allen, A Tuilagi; Ford (Twelvetrees 74), B Youngs; Ayerza (Mulipola, 72), Chuter (T Youngs, 62), Cole (Castrogiovanni, 56) Skivington (Kitchener, 74), Parling, Mafi, Salvi, Waldrom.

Tries Mafi, Allen Cons Ford 2 Pens Ford 2.

Sin-bin Waldrom 39.

Referee Wayne Barnes (RFU). Attendance 81,779.

• Leinster 30-31 Ospreys

Shane Williams’s script writer surely hails from Hollywood. The wing marked his final appearance for Wales with a try against Australia in December from the final play of the game and on Sunday he clinched the RaboDirect Pro12 title for Ospreys with his second try of the match three minutes from time, his last touch of the ball in competitive rugby.

Like his first try on 58 minutes, he had to wait for the video official to confirm the score after Rob Kearney had tried to get under the wing to prevent the ball being grounded, but he knew what the verdict would be. He had appeared on his opposite wing as Ospreys pressed for the winning score, leaving Dan Biggar with a conversion from wide on the right which the outside-half put through the middle of the posts to deny the Heineken Cup holders the double.

Williams, despite the hot weather and intent of both sides to move the ball, was on the periphery of the action for the most part but he has made his name in his 15-year professional career as an opportunist who has the ability to turn a match in an instant. He may be 35, but retirement looks premature.

“I have had a blast but it is time to do something else now,” said the wing, who is due to play for the Barbarians against Wales in Cardiff on Saturday in what will be his career’s final match. “I have had a lot of fun and will miss it, but to go out with a trophy was everything I could ask. We dug deep and I knew I had to do something at the end.”

Leinster lacked the intensity they had shown against Ulster the week before and lost to Ospreys in the play-off final at their RDS ground in Dublin for the second time in three years. Although they led for long periods and were nine points up with seven minutes to go, they struggled up front after the prop Mike Ross limped off 14 minutes in and they had two props sent to the sin-bin for collapsing. The match finished with uncontested scrums.

Ospreys scored 17 of their points when they had a man advantage, although the felt aggrieved at the end of the first-half, when they trailed 17-9, not to have been awarded a penalty try after Leinster collapsed four scrums five metres from their own line, earning their prop Henke van der Merwe 10 minutes off.They used their man advantage to hammer away but met a blue wall until Williams, crossing from the left, squirmed through two defenders to end his long career on the highest of highs and hand Wales the Celtic league title to go with the Six Nations grand slam. “It was not our best performance of the season, but we never stopped fighting and we deserved to get something from the campaign,” said Williams.

Leinster Kearney; McFadden, O’Driscoll, D’Arcy, Nacewa; Sexton, Reddan (Cooney, 76); Van der Merwe, Cronin (Strauss, 50-65), Ross (White, 14), Cullen (capt; Thorn 44), Toner, McLaughlin, Jennings (Ryan, 74) Heaslip.

Tries Nacewa 2, Cronin Cons Sexton 3 Pens Sexton 3.

Sin-bin Van der Merwe 40, White 71.

Ospreys Fussell; Dirksen, Bishop, Beck, Williams; Biggar, Webb (Fotuali’ i, 54); James (Bevington, 63), Hibbard (Baldwin, 74), A Jones (Jarvis, 74), AW Jones (capt), Evans (King, 63), R Jones, Tipuric, Bearman.

Tries S Williams 2, Beck Cons Biggar 2 Pens Biggar 4.

Referee R Poite (France) Attendance 18,500.

• Richards was the coach at centre of Bloodgate scandal
• Premiership title triumph ‘is a massive tribute to Dean’

There was a symmetry about the three players who scored the 30 points for Harlequins that were enough to take the club to a first Premiership title: Nick Evans and Tom Williams, who supplied 25 between them, were the central figures in the Bloodgate scandal three years ago while Chris Robshaw has been one of the key figures in the transformation of a side that now sweats blood rather than fakes it.

Williams was not made available to the media after the victory against Leicester, but Evans reflected on how Harlequins had been able to emerge stronger from the bloody subterfuge on a spring Sunday in 2009 and build on the foundations laid by its perpetrator, Dean Richards, who in August will complete a three-year ban for the fraud.

Robshaw paid tribute to Richards’s successor as director of rugby, Conor O’Shea, who has established a culture at Quins very like that Warren Gatland brought to Wasps a decade ago at the start of a trophy‑drenched era for the Wycombe club: hard work and togetherness allied to pastoral care. Just as Gatland used to look for ways to keep his players mentally fresh as campaigns neared their end, so O’Shea took his squad to Abu Dhabi for four days after the play‑off semi-final victory over Northampton.

“Conor is the most positive guy you will meet,” Robshaw said, whose season started with the disappointment of not being chosen in England’s World Cup squad but ended with the flanker holding the Premiership trophy and the captain of his country. “That is reflected in the way we play with pace and passion.”

Robshaw not only scored Quins’ second try, but prevented Leicester from taking the final to extra-time by winning a turnover near his own line after the countdown clock had reached zero. Evans kicked 20 points and may have been lining up on the other side but for Richards who persuaded him in 2008 that he would be better off at the Stoop than Welford Road, where he had been offered a contract.

“Conor’s man-management is brilliant,” Evans said. “Dean laid the foundation with the young guys and Conor has increased the professionalism. A lot of ownership has been given to the players and winning the Amlin Challenge Cup final last year was a springboard for us. We are no longer Quins the underdogs and that will mean a different phase for us next season. We went through a tough time three years ago. The club effectively imploded but no one jumped ship. The core of the group remained the same and Conor galvanised us. Bloodgate is a tattoo that will always be there, but as far as we are concerned it has gone.”

O’Shea, again like Gatland at Wasps, did not undo what he had inherited but added to it. Even on probably the greatest day in the club’s 146-year history, just seven years after they were relegated from the Premiership, he preferred to pay tribute to others, starting with Richards, who if Newcastle are spared relegation will be returning to the Stoop next season as the Falcons’ director of rugby.

“This is a massive tribute to Dean who put so many of the structures in place,” O’Shea said. “We said a couple of years ago that we wanted to write a new chapter in the club’s history and this has to be the starting point. Chris Robshaw epitomises what Harlequins are about: he does not get ahead of himself and he is ultra-competitive. He will not allow the players to rest on their laurels.”

Just as Wasps in the previous decade had a core group of players who had been together for years, so O’Shea pointed to the likes of Ugo Monye, Williams and Mike Brown, who had come through the ranks at Quins. “We were in a dark place three years ago, but no longer,” said the England wing Monye. “The biggest change has been the culture Conor has influenced. He’s a top guy.

“He knows how to get the best out of young talent and deserves massive credit. He has developed and matured us. Before the final, he said the reason he came to Quins was for days like this and to beat a side as fantastic and consistently successful as Leicester shows how far we have come. When the final whistle went, Conor was one of the first people I looked for. I wanted to go over and give him a hug because I know how much it means to him and how much he has sacrificed.”

• Twickenham sold out for Aviva Premiership final
• Leicester beat Quins 43–33 only last month

For a variety of reasons Saturday’s Aviva Premiership grand final needs to live up to its billing. Last weekend’s display of pyrotechnics on the same ground by Leinster will take some eclipsing and the ongoing row over Championship promotion has cast an ugly shadow. Premiership Rugby wants a dull, stale finale almost as much as eBay needs more second-hand Olympic torches.

Harlequins and Leicester, happily, seem to bring out the best in each other. The regular-season game between the two clubs last month was a minor classic, the Tigers winning 43‑33. Richard Cockerill, Leicester’s director of rugby, reckons that fixture will have no bearing on the final but Quins will treat it as a reminder that Leicester’s defence is not impregnable. While the London club may never have won an English title, they long since shed any sense of inferiority.

They will also look at the Tigers’ playmaker with interest. The teenaged George Ford demonstrated in the semi-final that he is a young player of considerable potential but it is asking a lot to anticipate the same match-winning poise exhibited by Owen Farrell for Saracens in last year’s final.

Leicester are also missing Tom Croft, a major lineout option and ball-carrying menace. Steve Mafi has been outstanding but it could be argued Quins have as much snap and crackle in the back row and at half-back as their opponents currently do.

That places a hefty responsibility on Leicester’s front five to secure the dominant platform which will frustrate Quins’s all-court off-loading game. Such a scenario is not the certainty it might once have been. Joe Marler is improving by the week and his all-English battle of scrummaging wits with Dan Cole will go a long way towards determining the outcome, particularly if James Johnston brings his considerable presence to bear on the tighthead side.

The sold-out occasion will also require Quins to display more backline fluency than they managed against Northampton in a taut semi-final but they showed no nerves in Toulouse this year, nor in their big wins last season over Munster and Stade Français in the Amlin Challenge Cup final.

“I think we’ve got more strings to our bow than we had 12 months ago,” says Conor O’Shea, their director of rugby. “Our scrum can be a dominant factor, as opposed to a survival factor, and our lineout and maul has become a weapon.”

They also handle the ball better than most, precisely the quality which has set Leinster apart lately. “The longer we try and play a certain way the more comfortable the players are and the better decisions they’ll make,” says O’Shea. “It’s easier to rein yourself in than expand the canvas. We all know the way we want to play is with tempo and I think we can ask more questions of teams that way.”Ever since they started staging stand-up comedy nights to encourage players to produce under pressure, and linked up with Ashridge Business School to foster a culture of self-improvement, furthermore, Quins have been waiting for a day like this to showcase their growing mental strength.

Having already beaten Saracens in front of a huge crowd at Wembley, big-stadium shyness does not seem a problem and they also have several individuals on a sharply rising career curve.

It would be no surprise if Marler, the fit-again Danny Care and Mike Brown all feature prominently on England’s upcoming tour of South Africa, with 18 tourists involved at Twickenham in total. O’Shea, along with his crafty assistants John Kingston, Tony Diprose and Colin Osborne, has been claiming all season that people give Quins insufficient credit. “When Leicester and Saracens win it’s: ‘Oh, they really know how to grind out wins.’ When you are us it’s: ‘Oh, they’re lucky.’ We’ll use that.”

They also have Chris Robshaw, a leader enjoying the time of his life. Quins are a side on the up; if their youthful team do not win the title this year, you suspect they will soon. Then again, how can anyone confidently bet against a Leicester win based on their superior physicality out wide and warrior instincts in cup finals? It could and should be the edge-of-the-seat thriller Premiership rugby officials are praying for.

The Premiership final between Leicester and Harlequins at Twickenham is the perfect hunting ground for lock Geoff Parling

Same old Leicester. Here they are in their eighth successive Premiership final, an extraordinary feat of consistency and stamina. A fourth title in six years would be some achievement but stealthy reinvention is their real talent. The Tigers starting pack at Twickenham on Saturday will contain only three players who kicked off their last winning final against Saracens in 2010. Chop off the Hydra’s head and the beast grows back stronger than ever.

The Tigers also labour like Hercules out on the practice field. It has always been Leicester’s way – train hard, then train harder – and the environment breeds hungry competitors undeterred by grand final bunting. In the case of Geoff Parling, the England lock, a good club professional has been swiftly transformed into an improving Test player ravenous for silverware of any description.

The Stockton-born Parling, one of 18 players involved at Twickenham who will fly out with England to South Africa on Wednesday, reckons he would still be uncapped had he stayed at his much-loved former club Newcastle. “Definitely. I craved this sort of environment. Pretty old school, a bit harsher. You can just concentrate on your rugby and everything else is taken care of. The medical department, the conditioning department, your kit all gets washed for you. It’s a big level up.”

The Premiership is an unequal society, even before you start contemplating the vexed subject of automatic promotion and relegation. Get recruited by Leicester and, according to Parling, you will become a better player virtually overnight. “You can’t tell me that’s just the player, it’s the environment in which he’s in,” said Richard Cockerill in 2010, reflecting on the 6ft 6in tall second-row’s selection for England’s tour squad within 12 months of arriving in the East Midlands.

So how does this physiological transformation occur? Even Parling was slightly wary, having heard all the stories of training ground punch-ups and “Leicester bosh”. Within days he felt totally at home. “It’s not as bad as people think. We do a bit more brawling and the environment’s harsher but, as a team, you need to find what works for you. At Leicester our thing is that we work hard, we’re a bit more old school. Quins have got their thing. They’re a very confident team, they’ve just been over to Abu Dhabi. If that works for them, brilliant. It’d be too hot for me, I’m from up north.”

Leicester, furthermore, are under pressure to perform every week, not just occasionally. “Training with quality players, playing in the Heineken Cup, coping with the pressure of being expected to perform every week… it’s made a world of difference. I don’t think you’re going to go from being a bad player to a good player here but it’s going to help you improve. I came because I wanted to become better and to try to win things. I was getting frustrated with fighting relegation every year. As a player you’ve got a very short career and you’ve almost got to be a little selfish. At the time Leicester felt like the Manchester United of English rugby. I thought: ‘Not many people get this chance, I don’t want to turn them down.’”

The 28-year-old Parling, with his bushy beard, pale blue eyes, protruding backside and penchant for a good sing-song, is the kind of down-to-earth character who makes the Tigers tick. The only two defeats he has been involved with in 2012 have been Leicester’s ill-fated Heineken Cup trip to Ulster in January and England’s narrow defeat to Wales, his first start for his country.

Stuart Lancaster has been quick to appreciate his ability to run a lineout and Parling’s performance in the away win over France in March has cemented a starting Test place.

He would not be human if he did have one eye on South Africa, where mountainous lock forwards come as standard and smashing the England front five will be a high priority. At Leicester, though, anyone looking too far ahead risks the wrath of Cockerill, who has worked wonders along with Matt O’Connor since the World Cup in hoisting the Tigers from 11th place in the table.

Parling reckons people underrate Cockerill. “Everyone has this vision of Cockers just being a very angry man. Sometimes he is. But he’s also a bit more astute than everyone gives him credit for. He does a lot of homework.”

Many underestimate Parling, too. His father, Geoff Sr, a retired teacher, played most his career for Stockton fifths and, in six years at Newcastle, his son won nothing. It is a different story now. In the 2010 final it was Parling’s late lineout steal which clinched the trophy for the Tigers. Twelve months later he had to sit and watch Saracens turn the tables, having missed almost the entire season following neck and knee surgery. “I was absolutely gutted for the lads. I’m not a watcher of rugby, I want to be involved. Some people never get the opportunity to play in finals. It’s all about making the most of it.”

That, in a nutshell, is what makes Leicester so dangerous. Other clubs may think they’re hungry but it is a relative concept. It matters not to Parling that an England rival, George Robson, will be in direct opposition. “I don’t think it gives you an extra edge. It’s a final. If you haven’t got the extra edge for a Premiership final anyway you’re probably in the wrong game. If we play well, we think we’re good enough to beat them. We’ve just got to make sure we do that.”

Harlequins and Ospreys stand in the way of the favourites as the domestic seasons approach their finales

A season that started all the way back at the beginning of August reaches its conclusion this weekend, although 10 months will turn to 11 for those going on the tours by the Six Nations countries this summer.

It is, on the surface, asking too much to expect Harlequins and Leicester, who meet in Saturday’s Aviva Premiership play-off final at Twickenham, and Leinster and Ospreys, who will battle for the RaboDirect Pro 12 crown in Dublin the following afternoon, to mark the end of the campaign with a kaleidoscope of colour.

Lip service has been paid over the years to the subject of player welfare, but as governing bodies and organisations ask more and more of those who attract spectators to grounds, and sponsors and broadcasters to part with their money, rugby in Europe is in danger of providing more and less at the same time.

Both finals, even so, have the potential to mark a fitting end to the campaign. Harlequins and Leinster have led from the front for most of the season, finishing at the top of their respective leagues, while Leicester, especially, and Ospreys were strong in the second half, although the Welsh region had an unbeaten start during the World Cup.

Harlequins and Leinster have both come a long way since their Heineken Cup quarter-final meeting at the Stoop in 2009, a match which became known for an attempt by Dean Richards, then the director of rugby at the London club, to engineer victory in the dying minutes by getting one of his players, Tom Williams, to fake a blood injury and allow a goal-kicker, Nick Evans, to return to the field.

Leinster were leading 6-5 at the time. They were then known in Europe as the nearly men, falling short when it mattered. Had Richards’s ruse worked, and not been rumbled, which it may have if Williams had grimaced with pain on his way off the field rather than winking, Leinster might not have just celebrated their third Heineken Cup triumph in four years; the hard-fought victory three years ago marked a turning point.

The affair precipitated several departures from Quins, who under Richards were re-establishing themselves after a season in the second tier. It led to the appointment of Conor O’Shea as director of rugby and under him the club has flourished, making the play-off final for the first time.

O’Shea did not tear up everything and start over – he merely added to what was already there. If they play a more expansive style than most other sides in the Premiership, they are also more durable. Leicester used to be able to impose themselves physically on Quins, but the battle up front on Saturday looks even.

It may be Quins’ first appearance in a play-off final, but O’Shea is determined to make it the first of many. He has more than once in recent weeks cited Wasps in the 2000s as a template, both in the way they appreciated the demands of the play-offs before anyone else, peaking at the right time and giving the players more rest and relaxation as a season approached its end, and in the tight bond within the player and management group. Once a Quin, always a Quin.

Leicester are appearing in the final for the eighth consecutive season, a remarkable record given the clutch of players they lose to the international game for at least three months every campaign. If they are hard to beat in semi-finals, they are less sure when confronted by the final hurdle having lost four of the seven play-off finals and their last two Heineken Cup finals, although they won the LV Cup a couple of months ago.

They are the Premiership’s form side, unbeaten in the league when they have had their internationals, and their recovery from five defeats in their opening six matches was the stuff of dreams. They won away to the other three clubs in the play-offs in the run-in, and their victory at The Stoop came after they had twice trailed in the opening half by 13 points.

Quins looked shattered at the end of that game, although O’Shea maintains they had not emptied their tank. He took his squad to Abu Dhabi last week to allow them to wind down after the semi-final victory over Northampton, a time when his opposite number, Richard Cockerill, was waging a war of words with the England head coach Stuart Lancaster over the fitness of the outside-half Toby Flood.

Cockerill likes to keep a tight flow on information, one reason he is disdainful of Twitter, but Leicester’s approach on the field has been far from tight in recent months, the midfield axis of Flood and Anthony Allen giving them a multi-dimensional approach. George Ford seamlessly replaced Flood against Saracens in the semi-final, but as Ulster’s young outside-half Paddy Jackson found in the Heineken Cup final last weekend, experience counts in a final.

That would give Leicester an advantage, but two years ago they needed a late try to overcome Saracens, who were then making their first appearance in the final. The Tigers will start as favourites, but Cockerill, as impressive in his very different way as O’Shea, will have reminded his players that means nothing: they have been bit by underdogs too often in the past.

Ospreys, like Leicester and Harlequins, failed to make the knockout stage of the Heineken Cup, timidly succumbing to Biarritz in their final group match. A few weeks after that reverse, they changed their management team, promoting Steve Tandy to head coach, even though they were then second in the Pro 12, where they were to finish.

Ospreys, like Leicester, are playing with gusto, as they showed in their 45-10 victory over Munster in the semi-final. While more than 80,000 spectators will be at Twickenham, the Pro 12 final will be played at the RDS in Dublin rather than the Aviva Stadium, the venue when Ospreys won the title in 2010.

If the players will not be at their freshest there still promises to be drama, as the end of the football season showed. Never mind the play-offs, the top two in each league will do battle. Leicester and Leinster are fancied, but so were Bayern Munich.

Exiles remain outside looking in

London Welsh gave a spirited response at Cornish Pirates after learning that they would not be allowed to take their place in the Premiership should they clinch the Championship title.

The Exiles were playing for a prize they could no longer claim, but they ended a run of three successive matches without victory over the Pirates and three straight defeats at Mennaye Field. They take a 16-point advantage to Kassam Stadium next week and have the right to appeal against the RFU’s ruling that they failed the Premiership minimum standards criteria.

London Welsh can wait until after the second leg to appeal, when they will know whether they are the champions, and they issued a strong statement in the hours after the Union’s announcement without committing themselves to a course of action.

The RFU said that the auditors found there were various failures of the criteria by Welsh, but cited only one, primacy of tenure, the old favourite of keeping Championship clubs out of the top flight. It is a rule which effectively says that it may not be enough for Championship clubs to have the same facilities as sides already in the Premiership.

Sale are moving out of Edgeley Park, but it would have been interesting to have seen whether a Championship club proposing to share the ground with the Sharks would have passed the minimum-standards criteria. It would have been a push.

There are two problems for London Welsh over primacy of tenure. The first, and the one which snared Rotherham 10 years ago, is whether the heads of agreement they signed with the owner of the Kassam Stadium to play at the ground next season was legally binding.

Welsh, like Rotherham in 2002 with Rotherham United, signed a heads-of-agreement which stated that they would have a contract to play at the ground in the event of promotion. Would it have been enough to ensure that if someone else offered to pay more rent to hire the Kassam Stadium, they would be turned down?

The second issue was London Welsh’s nominated back-up ground in the event of their being unable to fulfil a fixture at the Kassam Stadium because Oxford United FC had rearranged a match on the same date. The second stadium had to be within 30 miles of the Kassam and in Welsh’s case it was not, with Brentford believed to be their destination.

The feeling that primacy of tenure is a convenient option is swelled by the experience of Bristol in the past. They have never been denied promotion, even though they play at a ground owned by a football club. Their second stadium, Ashton Gate, does meet the requirements, but Bristol are Premiership old boys, with a share in Premiership Rugby.

London Welsh have never been in the top flight and perhaps the greatest anxiety over their promotion is not just whether they would have had the money to allow them to assemble a squad capable of competing in the Premiership, but whether they would have saddled themselves with debt.

Would that be a fair reason to deny a club what it has earned. The RFU would probably back any move to simplify the criteria, and make them appear less a restraint of trade, but it has to convince Premiership Rugby. What happened to London Welsh on Wednesday does little for the reputation of English rugby. If Exeter had not owned Sandy Park would they have been allowed up two years ago? They have hardly disgraced the elite.

There is a lack of transparency. What passes as good enough for those in the Premiership should apply to those aspiring to join. The criteria should amount to no more than those of the existing Premiership club with the worst facilities.

• This is an extract from the Breakdown, our free weekly take on the world of rugby. To ensure a copy arrives in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here.

• Auditors cite primacy of tenure as main obstacle
• Exiles beat Cornish Pirates 37-21 in first leg of final

The Rugby Football Union has been accused of insensitivity by London Welsh and faces a protracted row over the decision to block their promotion to the Premiership. The Exiles continue to insist they have satisfied the minimum criteria and are poised to challenge the ruling which, as things stand, means Newcastle are safe from relegation.

Welsh have yet to receive the full judgment but the timing of the announcement, just hours before the Championship final first leg against Cornish Pirates on Wednesday night, annoyed both clubs. It seems certain the issue will not now be resolved before next week’s second leg in Oxford when the Exiles, following their 37-21 victory on Wednesday night, have an excellent chance of winning the title.

“If we win I suspect there is more to follow, and rightly so,” said the Exiles chairman, Bleddyn Phillips. “I would like to think we have good grounds to challenge it for a number of different reasons. I think we would have a very good case, on a matter of principle if nothing else. For the announcement to come out only a few hours before the final kicked off was a little insensitive.”

The main problem cited by the auditors surrounds primacy of tenure. Welsh had proposed playing at the Kassam Stadium but, under the regulations, teams who share grounds must nominate a second stadium. It is understood Welsh’s nominated reserve option was Brentford’s Griffin Park, which is more than the stipulated 30 miles away from the Kassam.

Welsh, who have 14 days in which to appeal, fail to see why several other Premiership clubs are allowed to share football stadia while they are not. “I want to see the detail where the devil often is,” said Phillips. “When we see that, we’ll make an assessment of what the grounds are for refusing it. The Kassam is a top‑class stadium for rugby and soccer and has hosted a Challenge Cup final. There’s no questioning its status as a top-class rugby venue. I would be interested to hear the grounds upon which they would [allow] it for some but not others.”

There was understandable relief in Newcastle – “To be given the lifeline of playing in the Aviva Premiership next season and keeping top-class rugby in the region is unbelievable,” said the Falcons’ commercial director, Duncan Edward – but no shortage of acrimony around the rest of the country. The lack of a decision before mid-May could easily have been avoided and Exeter’s director of rugby, Rob Baxter, described the situation as “ridiculous.”

The 10,516 fans who attended Wasps’ so-called relegation decider against Newcastle this month may also be among those feeling slightly duped. The Exiles, however, played like men inspired by a collective sense of injustice. First-half tries from the wings Joe Ajuwa and Nick Scott gave them a 20‑7 lead and two further tries inside two minutes early in the final quarter by the centres Hudson Tonga’uiha and James Lewis exploited some ordinary Pirates defence. This particular saga, though, is far from over.

Cornish Pirates Cook; Pointer, Suniula (Kessell, 64), Hill, Doherty; Thomas (Evans, 69), Cattle (capt); Rimmer (Storer, 61), Ward (Elloway, 70), Paver (Smith, 67), McGlone, Nimmo (Smith, 69), Ewers (Myerscough, 68), Burgess, Marriott.

Tries Pointer, penalty try, Burgess Cons Cook 3.

Sin-bin Thomas 14.

London Welsh A Davies; Scott, Lewis, Tonga’uiha, Ajuwa; Ross, Lewis; Lahiff (Moss, 79), George, Tideswell (Vili, 70), Mills (capt), Corker, Beach, Dewbee, Jackson.

Tries Ajuwa, Scott, Tonga’uiha, Lewis Cons Davies 4. Pens Davies 2. Drop-goal Ross.

Sin-bin Tonga’uiha 68

Referee G Garner (RFU) Attendance 3,205.